You thought this would be some fancy concept writeup. BUT IT WAS ME, DIO!
Glad to be back covering this fairly silly show. Sorry it’s been a while – I’ve been busy with all sorts of crazy projects and essay stuff recently, so I haven’t had the time to sit down and Sword Art Online.
A new season is upon us! That’s always pretty exciting, and this season in particularly looks extremely strong. So let’s start with that wonderful seasonal ritual of finding petty reasons to drop shows so our lives aren’t consumed by anime altogether. Hurray!
Incidentally, in light of my recent Samurai Flamenco essay, Mr. Justice will be handling all final assessments of this season’s new shows. PREPARE FOR JUSTICE.
We live in a world beset by evil.
Thieves and murderers. Vile governments and villainous tyrants. Loiterers and litterers. Wherever you turn, evil is lurking, waiting, ready to spring.
Sorry I’m so very late on this one – I decided to space out the finales of the three shows I’m writing essays for so that I’d actually have a first draft of each done before I checked out the finale of the next, and Sekai Seifuku unfortunately drew the short straw. That’s not its fault, though – of the three (Kill la Kill, Samurai Flamenco, and Sekai Seifuku), I’d say this is easily the best show, and I’m very excited to see it end. All of its ideas and characters have bounced off each other, exposed new reflections, and finally come together, and it’s looking like everything will end with the father who spurned his family and the little girl who accepted everyone into hers. A bright spot in a very lousy season, Sekai Seifuku has always maintained a great sense of wonder and magic buoyed by both a general atmosphere of melancholy and the sharp edges of the truths it’s toying with. I’ve come to really care about this family, and though the show itself is basically a living demonstration of how often families don’t work out, I’d like to see a happy ending for these characters.
So let’s conquer the world.
Welp, last week of the season. Some shows triumphed, some shows floundered, and some just stopped producing new episodes. Let’s run it down!
Yep, I’ve finally put together a top shows list. As I hopefully made clear in part one and part two of my critical biases post, this is obviously my list – it represents the things I think are most valuable in stories in the way I think they’ve best been articulated. It’s also just a list of shows I enjoy – there’s no hard criteria here, so I wouldn’t stress the numbers too much. Also, it’s a bit front-loaded – I only started watching anime seasonally about two years ago, so the last couple years are disproportionately represented. Incidentally, I’m not including movies here either – I think direct comparisons between shows and films are a bit of a stretch, but if they were included, this list would certainly be somewhat different. And finally, I’m absolutely (and thankfully) certain this list will change over time – there are still piles of widely beloved shows I’ve never seen, so I’m sure the current rankings will be filled out in the years to come. So with that all said, let’s get to the list – Bobduh’s Top 30 Anime of All Time.
-edit- I have now created a Top Shows Addendum for shows that have either fallen off or just barely missed this list. Please enjoy these additional almost-top shows!
Hello internet. I have a ridiculous announceah shit I already gave it away in the title. Yep, that’s right, I’m publishing a book. This book, specifically:
Well here we are. Allies gathered, enemies looming, stage set. It’s been a long and somewhat uneven ride for Kill la Kill, but it’s pretty much always held on to its core strength – an earnest and beautifully articulated love of pure spectacle. It’s generally kept things visually interesting in spite of anything approaching fluid animation, but this is the very last episode, so I’m guessing we’re actually gonna See Some Shit this time. I don’t expect this show to suddenly become a narrative masterpiece, but I’m perfectly happy to settle for twenty-three minutes of absurd visual excess. Let’s Kill la Kill.
Fell behind on basically everything this week because of Anime Boston, so I’m struggling to catch up as fast as I can. Of what I have watched, well…
Alright, very behind, but here I am. The last two weeks have done a tremendous amount of work in pulling this show’s threads together – family, identity, childhood, belief, it’s all lining up and it’s all working great. The Neverland the main characters have inhabited is falling apart under the disapproving gaze of Asuta’s father, and pretty much everyone is fighting back in their own way. Kate’s dream has powered Zvezda’s belief so far, and last episode featured each member of the team in turn sacrificing themselves in service of that belief. On the one hand, this was very generous of them, and demonstrated how much the members of this family care about each other. But on the other, none of them really had a choice – as the Chief glibly stated, he’s only done what promised the greatest chance of survival. All of these characters have been thrown away, but up until last week, Asuta didn’t realize this – he thought he still had power, thought he held the trump card of still being valued. That’s not the case anymore – he is a member of Zvezda through and through, reviled by the real world and given purpose only by the girl who believes he has value in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
Girls, actually. Renge also believes he has value, and unlike Asuta, Renge actually deserted a family that truly valued her. White Light may have lost its purpose and surrendered itself to power for power’s own sake, but it still had a job for White Robin. In abandoning that, Renge may have made the first act of willful rebellion against the defamilyzing status quo – she’s not a misfit, she’s a beacon. That’s interesting, but I honestly hope it’s not relevant – what would it say if the people this inhuman structure valued really were more valuable? Better to be valued by Kate, who sees purpose in everyone, than to be the favorite child of callous, unfeeling parents. Better Zvezda by far.
Alright, that’s enough rambling. I like this show, you guys. Let’s see where it goes next.
